//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Mocha's Story // by Mocha Star //------------------------------// All our comms shut down and overlayed on our HUD screens was a scientist in a lab coat, brown dress coat under that, and a purple tie with green polka dots on it, green shirt under that; not big on style. He sat in a high tech room full of advanced science machines and new age technology. I could see holo computers in the hands of random techs, a floating diagram of," I cleared my throat, "a bomb was just behind him on his desk. Really nice looking too. It was just the outside and in false color so it glowed in certain parts and flashed in others. It was kinda pretty, in a 'you're doomed' way. “Thank you for your forced attention, troops,” he started. He folded and interlocked his fingers in front of his pale skinned face and used his knuckles to nudge his glasses slightly higher up the bridge of his nose. Whatever he was going to say he wasn’t comfortable with it. “I am Doctor… Well, just call me Doctor, since this will be a short message. You select few have been chosen to be the subjects of a test. Yes, there is a test. First one to the flag, or whatever game it is you play. The second; I have designed a new tool for the aid and growth of life in an area. It will clean the air of all particulates, the water will be sterilized, the ground will be fertilized, and where ever we use it we will be able to repopulate within hours of detonation.” He sighed and sat straight up, placed his hands to his temples and pressed lightly. “The only thing we need to do is test it on possible human inhabitants to the area. It wasn’t my ideal plan, but you are said subjects. At this very moment a device in being dropped from above you and will detonate very shortly.” I felt my legs trembling before I collapsed to the ground. I looked past my HUD and tried to zoom into the sky. Damn was it bright, though. I looked around to my team members and watched as they stood or fell like me, staring ahead, watching ‘Doctor' talk to us. “With the best of luck, you will not be harmed at all. Worst case, the data you provide will be invaluable to future tests,” he lowered his arms and looked to the camera, as though he could actually see us, “this is how science is done. This is how we made so many advancements and… how we created so many deaths. The cycle has to end, and with this device; Genysis, we can all, every human, have an ideal world. -Zxxxtxt- “G-s-xxt-sspp---bles-xxttx.” “Then that was it. I woke up a pony and the world was happy and full of fruit trees, magic, love, sunshine and happiness ever after." “Don’t scowl at me, you know I’m joking. It’s my thing, how I cope with events that are less than happy.” I groaned loudly and stretched my legs, all four of them, before I continued. There was a flash of light that barely registered since my suit had light filters and polarized lenses, so I didn’t get to see with my eyes what happened, but thankfully there was a complex series of cameras across my suit that switched on. I looked to my right and tightened my grip on my rifle as a cloud of vibrant, white, heavy light and dust washed across the city toward us. It looked like it was swallowing the city in the two seconds it took to hit me. I was thrown into the air and saw the city shrink below me as I was tossed into the swirling energy that picked me up. The ground vanished in that sea of colorlessness then I was pulled and was tossed around, rubble smashing into my armor and shattering several of my cameras, blinding me to the world, turned to shit, around me. I could see enough to recognize the ground. It was coming at me. Fast. I grit my teeth and called out commands to the onboard software to prepare for a crash. Bags inflated around my body and I couldn’t move. The air hissed inside my suit somewhere and I cursed. My air supply was damaged and leaking. What a way to die. As a lab rat. I impacted the ground with enough force to crack the asphalt below me. Red lights and things flashed inside my suit telling me my whole world was pain. Like I needed a computer to tell me my armor was as good as a toy horse in a tornado and I had the best case of tinnitus of my life. My vision was blurry and I saw a few spots but overall I was okay. I called up a medical diagnosis and I saw lots of green and a few yellow spots, nothing to bad. I chuckled and looked around and through my polarized lenses the ground was bright still. Glowing but it looked like cracks were all around and under me. I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I lived then looked to the direction of the initial blast. Standard mushroom cloud spiking up into the sky, only it was green. I took a picture and started recording, something I might be able to blackmail a few million bits from the government and get out of the military, start a life. Then I looked back where the blast went and my heart fell. A funny thing about bombs most ponies don’t know is that there’s an exchange of force. The blast forces an energy wave out, but creates a negative space that has to be filled. Which means that something has to go back to refill the gap. That’s when I got picked up again. Felt like I got hit by a train and I was tossed around like a leave in the wind again I just waited with baited breath for my death. I just gave up. There was no way I could survive this twice. This wasn’t some movie, book, or play. I couldn’t hide in a box and live through this. This is how I was to die. I closed my eyes and thought of what any great geek would think at a moment like that. And I shouted it proudly, so the universe would hear me. “PICARD WAS BEST CAPTAIN!” Then I saw the mushroom cloud coming closer. Fast. I grinned at my last line and took a superman pose, aiming into the inferno of doom. Going out with style was part of the game, I figured. Then everything went dark. I mean pitch black. My tech fizzled but didn't burn out. The hiss of air escaping was the only thing that broke the silence I was in. I looked around frantically trying to see anything or anyone. How many creds would I have given to see a flashlight in the distance? How many years of service would I trade for my friends? Thoughts began to flood my mind as I watched the NO2 gauge slowly fall. The time estimated several minutes before I’d be out of air and begin to suffocate. “Is this how Zombie Shakespeare dies?” I quoted comically taking a pose from Hamlet. “Shut up and give your location, Mocha.” “Techie! Crap, oh crap. Ya heard that?” “We all did, numb nuts,” Skippy said in a deep voice. “You were talking over open comms. Of course we heard you.” “Thanks Obvious, didn’t figure that out on my own.” “Cadence! Everybody, I’m glad I’m not the only one. Where are you all?” “Floating in a vast sea of dorkness,” Minnie said. “The black sea? That’s racist!” “Oh shut up, Mocha! God, when we get outta this I’m gonna slap you.” “Minnie, as long as I’m in armor, you can kick me in the nuts. Until then, let’s just find out where we are. Any ideas?” “Limbo?” “That’s a place between life and death.” “Thanks Obvious,” Butter Bar said flatly, “but I don’t think we’d be in full gear still. I still have my rifle. I’m gonna fire a test round.” “NO!” we all shouted. “If you fire a weapon you could hit one of us, dumbass,” Techie said with annoyance in his voice. I turned my arm cannon on, that a gun built into the arm of my armor, and fired a shot into the nothing. While they bicker about the risks I’ll take it. Nothing happened but a round was spent. No one noticed so I fired off a couple more for fun. I turned down the volume and looked where I think I’d fired my rounds and waited. Maybe a giant worm monster would open its maw and we’d fly out into an asteroid belt or anything. No such luck. I readied my rifle, switched to a flare, and fired. No light. Either it failed or the darkness sucked the light up. “Great.” “What was that, Mocha?” Cadence asked, turning her fury from Butter Bar to me. “I tested a flare and nothing happened. Either it failed to ignite or the darkness ‘ate’ it.” “Fan-fucking-tastic. And did I give you permission to waste resources, specialist?” I scoffed at her tone and ignored her. “We have to find out what’s going on, where we are, and where WE are in relation to each other.” “To my knowledge none of us are directly related.” “Shut up, Obvious!” we all shouted. “Unless it’s about something important,” I added. I once told him to shut up during a training exercise and half our team was killed because he wouldn’t tell us there was an enemy behind us. Lesson learned. He’s literal too. “Why don’t we just unload and attack it?” “What the hell are you thinking of attacking Skippy?” “I’m gonna attack the darkness.” We broke down into laughter, he was kinda funny when he wanted to be. I started to feel vibrations and called everyone’s attention to it. They noticed it too and we started looking around at what could be causing it. I heard Janice whisper her weapons name, almost as if to mock the entire situation. She named it ‘+10’, so when she’d get a hit or kill she could call ‘+10 to the win’, or something nerdy like that. I know my eyes rolled. Slowly I focused ahead and saw a pinprick of light. “Guys, look. Light! Can you see it, it’s to my left. I can’t turn my body but I see it.” “Me too!” “It’s kinda pretty, hope it gets us out.” We watched and waited as it grew in size until it was bright enough so we could actually see the noses on our faces. My polarized lenses had disengaged and the light was warm. Refreshing, even. The quiet blaring of an alarm was quickly silenced as my air tank nearly ran out of gas. I can only assume the others were in a similar boat as we passed some kind of threshold. Green grass. Blue sky. Trees. Shit. “We’re really high, guys.” I looked around and couldn’t even see anyone in my squad. A quick scan revealed no one. I rolled and tumbled freely looking and scanning for any sign of them for naught and rolled flat to my belly and opened my arms to break speed. I had an emergency parachute, as did we all. Hope everypony’s worked, I thought. I punched a panel on my chest plate and shouted ‘parachute’, then the pull of gravity stopped and I gagged on my own spit for a minute; hacking and coughing for a good minute as I gathered my senses and took account of landmarks and a few photos. Video was still recording so I was excited to see my own near death experience. I reinitialized the computers, again. Got diagnostics on the armor, my body, my weapons. Well, I was showing a lot of yellow, the armor was heavily damaged, and my air was still leaking with about a minute left. Whooptie-doo. Still about twenty minutes until I land in this light forest and then I could activate my … broken homing device. Never mind that option. Well, I still have comms. I was so glad when I landed, but I had to get my squad together. “System, comms status?” “25 mile short range only. Please see a mechanic to repair armor ASAP.” “Yeah, I’ll schedule it when I get back to base. Activate radio and scan for any friendlies.” ”Scanning. Scanning. One friendly found. ID indicates Skippy is seventeen miles northwest of current position. “Seventeen fucking miles?! In this busted up piece of shit armor? How long will it take me to march my ass that far?” w ”Approximately one and a half days. Nutritional supplies are sufficient for duration of march and atmosphere is free from harmful particulates at the scannable range of one part to a billion of known toxic substances. General background radiation is averaging 3 millirads. Air pressure is 1,750 feet above sea level-” “Okay, I stopped listening after how long it’d take. Point me in the right way and scan for hostiles.” With a click in confirmation a light blipped to the bottom left of my vision. I turned to face it until it got centered below my vision and I began to march toward it. This was gonna be a long day and I was walking into the sun. I could see what time of day it was by watching where it moved. Morning or night, I’d know to schedule my rations that way. “System, what time is it?” ”The current time is 0320 hours.” “Well it's definitely not three in the morning. What about where we are. Shoulda been some indicator when we were falling. ”There are no known locations or landmarks nearby to use as a point of reference.” “Great. So it’s three in the morning and the sun is high with no idea where I am. Maybe I’m on the other side of the planet. Maybe I was thrown into the future, and when I find Skippy he’ll be a skeleton surrounded by the bones of a hundred wolves that made the mistake of trying to take a eat him.” I chuckled and put a little more pep in my step. “Turn on awesome mix three. I need to jam out; keep scanning for life forms and anything that can be hostile.” Another click and James Brown's I Feel Good began pumping throughout my suit; I sang along with the gusto of a shower sonet. Yeah, pretty bad. But I felt good, so there was that. A few minutes later I was jamming out to a Backstreet bory hit when the sun did something I’d never seen before. It moved suddenly, like a tick, not a steady motion. Well, it’s normal now, but I was stunned. Never had I seen the sun move an hour space in a second. The next few minutes consisted of me jumping around like an idiot, screaming science fiction ‘facts’, and being a fool I started marching again, waiting for the next hour to come so I could see it again. “This sucks. How much farther ‘till I’m there?” I whined in the most manly fashion possible. We have traveled six miles. Rest is advised.” “Shut up. I know about rest. The sun is gonna set soon and I’m exhausted. There aren’t any hills, mountains, caves, or even a valley for reference, damnit? System, how many probes did I buy?” You have the ten probe package. Four tunnel mappers, three sector scanners, and three general purpose. “Whatever one has the best range, fire it and give me a display of the topography, if you can.” With a slight whirring noise a small thrust from my back sent me stumbling forward while my HUD lit up with an impressive map. It was 2D, but it had everything for a good ten miles before the probe died. And all I saw was an expansive, yet sparse, forest. A few rivers or streams, and that was it. I was still miles away from finding out if Skippy was okay, so I should growled. “Well, I’m not wasting any more scanners like that. I gotta hot the head. System, open up and enter guard mode.” A lot of grinding and clinking filled my senses and I gritted my teeth. “Don’t. Fucking. Say it. The suits locked due to damage. Fine, I have options. Crappy ones, but if I have to. System, activate internal waste disposal,” I groaned as the words left my mouth. The sensation was unpleasant, to say the least. I won’t go into details but you can guess what entered my body and where. Well, I did what I had to and was thankful that system worked. Well, I was exhausted and had to sleep in power armor. So, I found a nice rock to lean against, fell to my butt with a heavy thump, then fell back to look at the sky. I had always loved the sky; the stars, the constellations, Cadence's eyes. “System, where the hell is the Big Dipper? Scan for constellations and tell me where we are.” Scanning. Scanning. No related constellations found. Current location, unknown.” “Damnit, where the hell did I end up. Team? Squad? Anyone there?" I began to ask, hoping against the obvious, "Can you hear me? This is Mocha.” I fell back, my heart beating faster and my fists clenched tight. I didn’t know if I really was dead or alive, or what. There are, and were, so many possibilities that I actually chose to stop thinking about it. I turned on a show called "MacGyver" and killed some time. “Scan for hostile lifeforms and enter low power mode, run any repairs you can but save resources on anything we don’t need. I’m going to sleep, keep trying to get into comms with anyone. Wake me, gently if anything happens. I don’t want to find out there’s a lizard monster on my chest and kill it only to find out it’s some kind of god to a local population of Ewoks.” I looked to the stars and glanced side to side, checking various readouts and stats on my armor, weapons, and self. I was mostly green again, and the suit went from red to yellow in most spots. The suit could self-repair to a point. Not fully, this isn’t some comic book where everything is perfect and magical. At the cost of time it could patch smaller holes in the armor itself with molecular bonding. My air tanks were shot, the last of the air leaked out and repairing it was a technicians job. A few spots on my armor were irreparably weak, even after self repair. I needed to get to a shop or find Reece. I was worried about what I’d wake up to. What nightmare could greet me through the night or in the morning. “Gods, if you’re there. Take care of my friends and I.” I wasn’t much for religion but once in awhile I’d ask a random deity for a favor. Usually booze or better luck gambling, but this time it seemed more appropriate to ask them all at once for something that mattered. I decided to playback the recording of my journey and was shocked at what I saw.